the world of private banking

CHAPTER 11
Private Banks and Industry in the Light of
the Archives of Bank Sal. Oppenheim jr. &
Cie., Cologne
Gabriele Teichmann
The Oppenheim Bank and its Role in the History of Industrialization
In 1789, the 17-year-old youngster Salomon Oppenheim jr. from Bonn founded a
commission agency and bill-trading business on his own account. He came from a
family belonging to the group of so-called court Jews who provided the splendid
court of the Prince Elector in that city with luxury goods and money. In 1794,
however, the Rhineland was conquered by French revolutionary troops and the
Prince Elector left, never to return. Salomon Oppenheim realized that Bonn held
no future for him, and therefore moved to the ancient trading city of Cologne,
where the bank has retained its principal seat ever since.
The time and place of the bank’s establishment are important in order to assess
its role in the industrialization process. After the French conquest and the formal
integration into the French Republic in 1797, the Rhineland suddenly shared the
most advanced and dynamic political, social and economic system of the day. The
Ancien Régime was abolished, while the introduction of the Code civil and the Code
de commerce offered a degree of freedom for the individual never experienced
before. The Rhenish Jews benefited to an even greater extent from the new order
because they were granted full emancipation for the first time in history, at least
until Napoleon’s Décret Infâme of 1808 again cut back on their civil rights. Thus,
the modern age began earlier in the Rhineland than anywhere else in Germany,
and French rule paved the way for modern industrial Cologne.
Around 1800, banking in Germany was dominated by the private bankers of
Frankfurt – among them most prominently Meyer Amschel Rothschild – who
siphoned off almost the whole public loan business. Accordingly, bankers elsewhere
found themselves forced to open up new business fields. Those of Cologne turned
For overall information about the history of the Oppenheim Bank, see M. Stürmer, G.
Teichmann and W. Treue, Wägen und Wagen: Sal. Oppenheim jr. & Cie.: Geschichte einer
Bank und einer Familie (Munich, 3rd edn, 1994); English edition: Striking the Balance:
Sal. Oppenheim jr. & Cie. A Family and a Bank (London, 1994).
R. Tilly, Financial Institutions and Industrialization in the Rhineland 1815–1870,
(Madison, 1966), p. 12–13.